I know this will come across as a bit of flame-bait, but:
What is the point in comparing two crappy news sources? Neither is worth spending time on.
Also, more on-point: Are they looking only at news, or are they including opinion?
What is the point in comparing two crappy news sources? Neither is worth spending time on.
Also, more on-point: Are they looking only at news, or are they including opinion?
It'd be nice to see comparisons of all the news networks, but if you're going to start somewhere it seems like the two which have the majority of viewers seems appropriate.
* CNN.com: 524 million
* NYtimes.com: 449.9m
* FoxNews.com: 263m
* WashingtonPost.com: 156.9m
* CNBC.com: 144.5m
* NYPost.com: 119.6m
* Forbes.com: 85.7m
* USAToday.com: 85.5m
* BusinessInsider.com: 80.7m
* NPR.org: 76.6m
Source: SimilarWeb.com
https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-june-27-basic-cable-...
And as sibling comment says, CNN is well known internationally.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-networ...
And it has continued to get worst for the Leftist mainstream media.
>You need to see nominal viewers to understand just how absolutely crushing Fox News' dominance has been
Nominal viewers does seem really important to determine dominance. I'm not sure it's as important in the context of the project here, though. The numbers I quoted only seem to matter with respect to how the news sources were initially selected, not the actual analysis being done. I guess that stat does suggest they should compare Fox to MSNBC rather than CNN.
How is it not? If my options are crap, crappy, super crap and super-extra-duper crap... It seems helpful to know which one is the least crappy.
As an aside, are you willing to share which news station you don't put in the crap bucket?
It's also helpful to know that they are all crappy, which this didn't show.
This is a relative study. If instead they set up some reasonable objective criteria and ranked each news sources according to it, that would be useful. I may see that CNN scores only 20%, and Fox News scores only 10%. Yes, CNN would be better, but it would also tell me not to waste time on either.
> As an aside, are you willing to share which news station you don't put in the crap bucket?
I was a news junkie a decade ago, and weaned myself off of it. Things have likely changed since those years so it would be hard to suggest some now - I've heard sources like The Guardian have gone downhill, for example.
In general, print sources are way better. Even a mediocre print source tends to be better than almost all video/TV news. Radio is somewhere in between.
McClatchy DC[1] was one resource I would recommend in those days. It's a "general purpose" news organization and one of the few mainstream publications that often covered items neglected by the rest. Most hadn't heard of it, but the parent organization owns several well known print newspapers.
I see they filed for bankruptcy in 2020. I don't know if they've been able to maintain the quality.
As much as I dislike the NY Times, it's still way ahead of CNN/Fox/MSNBC.
I would first begin with categories. On the bottom is video/TV news. Radio can be OK. Print is usually far ahead of the other two.
I don't think there are any good sources on an absolute scale. Some sources are better than other in certain arenas, etc. I am willing to look into comparisons/analyses of things that have significantly higher signal to noise ratio. But comparing two news sources that are poor in almost every criterion is pointless.
It's like comparing VB[1] with early PHP. They're both poor languages.
[1] Once one of the top used programming languages in the world
I wish I had an answer. Good news sources are usually a case of: I know it when I see it. Once you read enough you can tell good shit from bad shit. Shows depth of knowledge, rigor, both sides (if there is an actual legitimate other side), a slant toward neutral verbiage, according to <reputable source>..., <reputable source> reports ..., etc. I wish this could be passed on to others. Good news sources have "it"
I think there is such an massive sea of information that you can tell any story you want with cherry-picking and aggressive call to action flame-bait verbiage.
It's much better if you can get an outside perspective. The right wing papers in the UK were selling Brexit as the sunlit uplands. The leading right wing paper in Canada, the Globe & Mail, called Brexit the height of stupidity. Judge for yourself which sources were better.
Double down on external sources with that second language that you've been meaning to learn. Lazy propaganda doesn't cross language barriers very well, so it stands out - almost as much as promoted content in English on a non-English Reddit sub. (but first, learn the words for "wounded" and "killed" as they are in half the headlines)
Sources change, too. The BBC used to strive for impartiality. Now, their national news spouts the government line, but the regional news hasn't got the memo and regularly runs critical pieces. I think the World Service is still it's own unit.
It can be measured quite objectively.
unbiased news is as meaningful as speaking without an accent. everybody has one. so follow the money and pick ones that are funded by people that have ethics which match your own.
It's mostly above board, if biased.
The non-opinion parts of Fox are not that bad but it's more rare.
My bet is they are looking at headline coverage both news and opinion.
I think this is a really worthy excercise so that we can see a bit more methodologically what kind of bias happens with selective coverage.
The tone and content of the coverage matters a lot.
Almost all of the editorial is bad on all sides. They have some insight, but it's so biased you have to hear other people talk in order to contextualize it.
Above board does not equate with quality.
CNN is pretty crap compared to most big print newspapers.
CNN is a broadcast news channel that covers things as they happen, not a newspaper where they write articles as long as they like.
So you'd compare it to MSNBC and Fox and possibly Network News, not news papers.
It is one of many factors. You can have a news source that is 100% accurate and virtually useless.
> CNN is a broadcast news channel that covers things as they happen, not a newspaper where they write articles as long as they like.
> So you'd compare it to MSNBC and Fox and possibly Network News, not news papers.
Depends on your goals. If you want relevant and accurate, then print is better. If you want breaking news as soon as it happens and can't wait a day - sure, TV news is better (still worse than radio). In my experience, less than 1% of TV news content is needed by 99% of Americans on the same day it occurs. They're not worse off if they find out the next day.
On top of that, a lot of "breaking news" is riddled with errors and speculation. If you want to know what happened, as opposed to what may have happened, it's simpler to wait. When I was a news addict, I was drowning with too much content. I put limits on myself: Once a month I would catch up with the news feeds (could take over a week to do so), and it quickly became obvious how relatively worthless "early" news was. I'd get all the relevant information by reading a fifth of the articles.
Yes, technically, 'very accurate' may not be good news, but that's not all CNN is. They are 'above bar' and a decent news org.
Yes, just 'breaking news' can be inaccurate, but that's not just what they are.
They're Cable News, and again, relatively decent.
Even though they are biased, if you had to pick 'just one' - I think they'd be a fair source.
I share your view on 'deep news' - but most people don't have time to go in depth.
CNN is not great but won't lead you too-too far off, most of the time.
Either MSNBC or Fox ... creates some unfortunate bubble thinking.
Incidentally, I actually think MSNBC, which admits to being a left-leaning news source, produces better (and less biased) news content than CNN. I have actually seen them cover important stories that are unfavorable to their point of view, when CNN has radio silence.
Similarly, knowing how different sources cover things presumably is part of the criteria one would use to qualify/disqualify them for personal consumption.
CNN is chronically last. FoxNews is invariably first.
On TV (amongst the big three news channels), Fox is first, then NBC, then CNN. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/124-cable-channels-ranke... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(American_television...
Furthermore, opt-in is not a conservative trait hence its inherent bias in favor of those who participate actively to the YouGov data farm.
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-networ...